Just some ramblings of a crazy new mom-to-be.

Month: September 2018

Anyone with a toddler can tell you about tantrums. The terrible twos and everything that comes with. J has been going through that full force right now. He knows what he wants (and doesn’t want) at any given time, and is about to articulate himself well enough to be understood. The problem arises when either 1. We simply can’t understand him 2. We can’t / don’t want to give in to him. This can be exacerbated by fatigue, hunger and being ill.

Then all hell breaks loose. Kicking legs. Flying arms. Tears. Screams. The works. To the random outsider, it might look like he’s been tortured. Or the world is ending.

Well. Maybe to him, the world is ending. He can’t see past the immediate consequence of what he’s not able to get. Hence sometimes, much to the unease of grandparents, we just let him cry. 5 maybe 10 mins later, he’ll be better. He’ll forget the screams. Forget the anger. Back to his normal happy self.

But sometimes, sometimes I lose it at him too. When I’m tired. Or have had a bad day, I’m as prone to screaming at him as he is at screaming at me. Does that make me a terrible mother ? Maybe. Some might think so. I refuse to think about it that way anymore. Because I’m only human. I’m a human juggling work and a child and a household. I’m not perfect. But Jared doesn’t expect perfection. He knows when he’s been bad. He knows how to apologise. How to make me feel better when I’m not in a good mood.

Grandparents might say that we’re being bad for letting him cry. But if you can’t cry, even as a child, how do you expect him to learn how to regulate his emotions?

So the tl:dr of this is. It’s okay to let them cry. It’s okay for you to cry. Everyone will be fine.

J has always been a really good sleeper. He’ll fall asleep at about 830 at night. Either in the car on the way home, or after milk in his room. He sleeps in his own room and wake up maybe once a night to fuss. And again at 0630 for milk. I used to just pat him back to sleep when he fussed. And bring him over to our bed for milk and more sleep. He’ll normally sleep till about 0930 if we don’t wake him up hahaha.

But recently, sleep has not been so fun. Putting him to sleep is usually still quite easy, with him falling asleep in the car. However. He has decided that he does not want to sleep past 1230 if both daddy and mommy are not with him in the same bed. He’ll get up. And scream. And scream and scream and scream till my husband comes by and picks him up (cos I refuse to carry him) and will refuse to settle unless we’re both lying with him. Since I don’t like him sleeping with us on our bed for too long (bad habit that I don’t want to establish) we lie with him in his room till he falls asleep. Which has resulted in me sleeping g with him till like 5am this morning.

I just need to know that this will end. And if there is any better way to do this. My sense is it’s an attachment thing. And the great big internet has assured me that this is normal. But how do we deal with it so much so that his good routine isn’t broken, and we all eventually go back to having enough sleep?